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BF3 Squads and Squad Leaders

06-08-2011, 11:49 AM

At first I was disappointed learning it was 4-man squads, because I was locked into thinking of them as the leaderless, BC2 version of 4-man squads. But now, after thinking about it more, I've changed back to being undecided.

Consider: in previous BFx games, did you ever participate in a 6-man squad split [either formally or informally] into two fire-teams?

If we shift our perception of the 'squads' in BF3 into fireteams, the potential for improved tactical game-play actually increases. What's going to make or break it though is the teamwork tools DICE provides. How do squad-leaders work, and what are inter-squad communication options?

At first I was disappointed learning it was 4-man squads, but now, after thinking about it more, I've changed back to being undecided.

Consider: in previous BFx games, did you ever participate in a 6-man squad split [either formally or informally] into two fire-teams?

If we shift our perception of the 'squads' in BF3 into fireteams, the potential for improved tactical game-play actually increases. What's going to make or break it though is the teamwork tools DICE provides. How do squad-leaders work, and what are inter-squad communication options?

Well, we obviously have no idea how its going to work in details, but what I'd like to see would be a mumble functionality built into the game. It'd also be pretty cool if you could link 2 squads voip together so you could get 8man squads split up into 2 4man teams.

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Yeah, I think the key is how squads can communicate with other squads.

I too, was disappointed to hear squads are limited to 4. But, I'm hoping that this platoon thing plays out, where a platoon is simply a grouping of multiple squads. That way, tasks at a macro level can be assigned to platoons (e.g., capture the base), but micro-level assignments can be assigned to the squads within the platoons (alpha squad approach from the south, bravo with the tank, charlie provides scouting intel). In this way, the 4 man squads are preferable over 6 man squads.

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Well I am going to hop on that boat of being disappointed, but I know in arma and more specifically my Arma Irregular Platoon, we take the rule of three. Meaning that the FTL is only responsible for three other people and the SL is only responsible for three other squads and so and so up the chain of command. All of this is based off of Dslyecxi's Arma2 Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures. So in my opinion this is a good thing.

"TG was created to cater to a VERY specific type of gamer rather than trying to appeal to the greater gaming population....Tactical Gamer is not mainstream. We are not trying to attract mainstream gamers" ~ Apophis

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I'm not going to pass any kind of judgement until we see how the platoon system works. If it turns out platoons are just a social networking kind of thing like clans, etc, then I'll be a tough vexed, but not anything thats going to turn me off from the game. If it turns out that platoons are exactly what we're hoping they'll be, then I'm all for it.

Either way, the key thing to remember here, Gents, is that this is TG. We've spent years playing games that have no kind of built in unit cohesion, voice communication or teamwork methodoology, and we made them work to our standards. However it plays out, we're not going to have a problem finding a solution.

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Consider: in previous BFx games, did you ever participate in a 6-man squad split [either formally or informally] into two fire-teams?

Yeah, we did it all the time, and it was how one 6-man squad could easily turn the tide of a game when the other team wasn't paying that much attention. On Pub servers especially, it was a huge advantage to have more guys in the squad. "Four only" will be limiting in that regard.

However, a server full of engaged 4-man squads could be really sweet, if the SLs are talking to each other. Like we did in TS anyway. With 6-man squads. So I'm back to wanting 6-man squads... ;)

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Consider: in previous BFx games, did you ever participate in a 6-man squad split [either formally or informally] into two fire-teams?

Only in PR, where there would be two squads (FT Alpha and FT Bravo) locked at four people (including SL). SLs would talk on Teamspeak, and the SMs would listen in and communicate within the squad on in-game VOIP.

What's this about platoons? I haven't heard anything about them before.

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What's this about platoons? I haven't heard anything about them before.

Basically, there's going to be some sort of platoon functionality in BF3. We don't know to what extent yet. My guess is, at worst, it's just a way to group friends within our friends lists (TG-70th platoon, RL friends platoon, etc). At best, we can group squads into platoons for more organization.

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I have no idea if this is new information, but the multiplayer footage of Operation Metro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPu7-LtLKmU) shows a squad list in the bottom-left-hand-corner with squad member at the top that has a star next to his callsign. And it's not just that member specifically, almost each shot with a visible squad list has a different callsign at the top. The star is always there regardless of squad size.

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And that's the problem with a 4 man squad, one man will need to hang back to act as spawnpoint first and support second, leaving three guys to actually attack...
In BC2 you can get away with all 4 attacking because odds are decent that someone will be up when your timer hits zero.

Assuming it generally plays like BF2, you will need at least 2 squads attacking to pose a credible threat to a CP/MCOM.

That's fine, if you can someone group squads together or easily talk to each other, and would actually benefit teamwork. I'm sure DICE has thought of some way to make this work.